One of the curious things about creativity is how acciden- tally it can unfold and how its appearance can catch even the creator by surprise. In retrospect, it seems easy to match a per- son's talents to his accomplishments, but that is not always the way people living out their lives perceive it. Hence, the im- portance of a collection of letters. To read 60 years of a person's correspondence is to experience the twists and turns of his fate. Where Frederick Law Olmsted is concerned, we see how...